


Secrets in September

by Turtlelady9



Category: Rizzoli & Isles
Genre: Alternate Universe - Serial Killers, Angst with a Happy Ending, Crimes & Criminals, F/F, F/M, Minor Character Death, Original Character Death(s), Original Character(s), Romance, Slow Burn, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-25
Updated: 2017-02-25
Packaged: 2018-09-26 20:42:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9921377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Turtlelady9/pseuds/Turtlelady9
Summary: This will be an AU original crime case-oriented narrative with several surprises along the way. I'm asking the readers to imagine Barry Frost to have been approximately the same age as Jane for some elements of this story to work out properly. I know in the show there is a noticeable age gap between them. Barry has died before the story begins but is mentioned in flashbacks. Jane's mysterious past here will turn her world on its head, but ultimately bring her closer to Maura. Slow and possibly angsty burn to Rizzles.





	

It's the first week of September which is the one week every year that Detective Jane Rizzoli usually takes off for a private vacation, destinations unknown. It's a strange week for the Boston police department to allow its top female homicide detective to take a whole week off from work as crime is often rampant in the city during the college move in weekends and over Labor Day and all the end of summer festivities. 

Something happened this week many years ago that only Jane's Lieutenant knows about and as a result he readily allows her to take the time. BUT, this year Jane tells him a few days ahead of time that she will actually work the week this year. This surprises him, but he asks for no explanation. 

On the morning of September 1st, Jane violently stirs awake coughing in fits and rushes to open her bedroom window for fresh air. She feels a foreboding chill in the air that something is not right in not only the city, but in her own world today of all days. 

Her immediate thoughts though are wrapped up in knots over the loss of her dear friend, surrogate brother and Detective partner Barry Frost. She saw him on the ground bleeding, breathless and lifeless in the nightmare that just startled her awake. She realizes this morning that exactly six months have passed by since his unexpected death and she deeply misses their friendship. She remembered that Barry used to constantly say to her, "always tell those you love that you love them." 

The week before he died, him and Jane actually shared a friendly late night dinner at the Dirty Robber just the two of them, and he told her his biggest secret, about his lost great love. He showed Jane a worn picture that he pulls out from his wallet of a woman holding a baby girl sitting on a blanket with a picnic basket leaning against some trees. The date 8/31/95 and words Regina and Virginia, Baby's First Birthday, in the Boston Commons were scribbled across the back. Regina Davidson was the love of Frost's life and Virginia was her daughter with another man. He had no contact with Regina after the day he took that photograph because she married her daughter's father and moved away. The picnic in the park was the last day he saw her before she died a few years ago. 

Noting how his regrets devastated him, he encouraged Jane to live without regret and finally go after her great love who he knew was Maura. He knew without Jane ever telling him that she loved her. She didn't deny it, but she laughed with him about it too. She offered the rhetorical fear-laden questions, "What could Maura ever see in me, though? Does She See Me the way I See Her?" "Could she love me back?" As they left the restaurant, Barry said to her urgently "Jane, Don't let your love for Maura remain unknown. Let her know and see and feel your love!" Jane replied, "In time, I guess. Thank you for knowing me so well and not judging me. I love you, Bro." Barry's response, "Be brave, I love you too, Sis." 

Jane thinks about this poignant, telling conversation everyday over the last six months. She ponders how Maura truly is the great love of her life and fights with herself in her thoughts on how to tell her this. She knows she needs to do this sooner rather than later. Life is too fragile to leave her feelings unknown. Still, some mistakes and secrets from her own past that she couldn't even share with Barry hold her back with great hesitation.

When Jane walks into the Boston Police Department (BPD) Homicide Bullpen and sees that the large clock on the wall displays the date, September 1st and time 8:02 a.m. she quickly darts her eyes around to see if anyone sees her. Detective Crowe locks eyes with her and makes the snide remark "Guess, you aren't getting laid this fine Labor Day week, huh, Rizzoli?!" She ignores him and turns to her phone and sends a personal message to a contact simply named DF. She then notices a text message from a number she doesn't recognize, but she knows who sent the message the minute she opens it and sees the initials MF at the end of the text. She programs the contact MF into her phone and sends a quick text back and puts it down on her desk. She then starts flipping through some cold case paperwork that needs to be reviewed and refiled in the evidence archives. No new murder cases were in, yet. Still, an uneasy feeling rises in her gut again and it tells her this is going to be a rough week. 

A few hours later, Maura comes up to the BPD Homicide Bullpen to speak to Lieutenant Cavanaugh about some lab tests the Governor requests and is surprised to see Jane working at her desk because of what week it is. After leaving the Lieutenant's office, Maura says with a hint of surprise in her voice, "Hey?! Jane you're here?!?" Jane says, "Yes, Maur I am. Do you want to go get lunch at the Dirty Robber?" Maura replies, "Yes." The clock now reads 1:02 p.m. As she gathers her things for lunch, Jane quickly looks down at her phone. She is surprised by no response from DF, but sees another cryptic message, "I still don't know where he is." - MF She doesn't reply this time but looks up and sees Maura waiting at the elevators and walks over to her to head to lunch.

When they first get to The Dirty Robber, Maura immediately asks Jane, "Why are you here working this week and not away?" Jane pushes back, "I don't really want to talk about it right now." Maura replies, "Okay." Jane quickly changes the subject to memories of Barry Frost. The ladies reminisce about good times with Frost, but they also talk about how he didn't have a family of his own, no wife, no children, no siblings either as Frost was an only child. Maura offers, "Jane, you were like a big sister to him. He loved you that way!" Jane replies, "I know, we told each other we loved each other like brother and sister not long before he died." Maura, says back to her, "Well, that's great! You should never leave an 'I love you' unknown!" 

Jane hears Barry Frost's words clanging like church bells in her mind, now, echoing in Maura's words. Jane lowly chuckles and says to Maura, "Funny you should say that." Maura looks back at Jane a bit perplexedly, but hopefully, too. But, seeing only her perplexed glance, Jane backs down from what she was going to say. Instead of telling Maura of her great love for her, Jane said, "Obviously, I love you too...pause...like a sister." Jane knew that last part was wrong even before it hesitantly rolls off her lips. Thinking in her mind to Barry, in time she will say it. Maura responds, "Of course! I know that. I love you too, sis. Thank you for saying it out loud though! I don't think we've ever said I love you out loud to each other. It's just always been implied by the way we behave around and talk to each other. It's important to say it to each other though with how stressful our fields of work are. It's important that we know we have people who care for us, people who are our family even if not by blood." Wow, there goes Maura with her google mouth again overanalysing everything, but not really hearing the deeper truth hiding in Jane's words, Jane thinks in her head. 

Luckily, their conversation doesn't end there with a reciprocal platonic "I love you." Jane thinks that maybe she could go around getting to the truth in a roundabout way. She offers a question to Maura, "Do you ever want to have a family of your own with kids and a special someone? I'm asking you now because Barry didn't have that and we are getting older now. We could miss out on those experiences if we don't act fast." Maura is about to respond to Jane when both of their phones ring simultaneously. Jane thinks, Grrrr. Maura answers "Isles," first. When Jane says "Rizzoli" she hears Korsak say something unfathomable to her ears, gasps "No!" in absolute horror and clenches her gut with the inside palm of her left hand. Maura hangs up her phone slides out of the booth and grabs Jane's left shoulder and asks, "Are you alright?" Jane doesn't want Maura worrying so she jumps up and shakes her momentary feelings of distress away and says "we better get going to 99 K Street Terrace in Southie, fast! Can you drive?" Maura softly replies, "Yes" and the ladies are on their way. 

When they park the car and reach the front lawn of the house as the sun is beaming brightly, Korsak approaches and stops Jane from entering as Maura goes inside. He repeats what he says on the phone to Jane in person, "the traffic light killer is back." This startles her and she falls to her knees in a coughing fit of despair and rage. She could never quite forget the first "traffic light killer" murder spree from twenty three years prior as the first victim was 21 year old Marissa Flynn, her best friend from childhood. Korsak lowers himself down to where Jane kneels puts his arm around her back comfortingly and says to her "you don't have to be a part of this, but I thought you might want to be to get justice for Marissa and all the girls, including this new girl here, Virginia Davidson. You might be the only one who can crack this case!" After a few minutes, Jane stands up on her own and cracks her neck from side to side and tells Korsak, "Let's do this!" 

As Jane walks up the front steps to this Southie triple decker with Korsak to begin their detective work, she encounters another shocking surprise. She notices a lanky young man with dark curly hair sitting down rocking a young boy with an Afro of dark curls who can be no more than two in his arms. They both hold their heads down crying. As he hears steps approaching, the young man's teary eyes shoot up suddenly. As he sees Jane, he softly exclaims, "Aunt Janie!" Jane looks at him with shock in her glance and softly replies back to him, "Drew, what are you doing here, honey?" He cries out in a defeated tone, "My girl Ginny's gone! Her boy Jordan needs me!" Drew doesn't get up, but Jane runs to his side drops down and holds him as he holds Jordan for a good ten minutes before Korsak politely taps Jane's shoulder and tells Jane they need to continue on with the investigation. 

The last time Jane saw Drew before now was his 18th Birthday on September 1, 2012. She helped celebrate it with him and his father Martin Flynn, Marissa's brother. Now, it was just three years later and he had obviously had a girlfriend and maybe a son she didn't know about. It broke Jane's heart that she never met his Ginny and didn't know Jordan and it was not because she was Drew's pseudo-aunt. Andrew Angelo-Francesco Flynn was her own flesh and blood, her biological son, her only child. Neither Drew nor anyone else there at the crime scene knew this, not even Korsak. With this new case now, this secret and others of Jane's really couldn't be held onto in the dark for much longer. She flipped her phone out of her pocket and sent a quick text to MF, "I found him."

**Author's Note:**

> This work is unbeta'd. All mistakes are mine. I will try to update once a week.


End file.
